WHAT started out as suspicions of voter manipulation in terms of Donald Trump’s unlikely rise to the White House has turned into a full-scale cyber scandal — and has raised alarms about online privacy for millions around the world. At the centre of the controversy is a shadowy political consultancy firm called Cambridge Analytica (which has its origins in a British PR firm that has been around for decades). It has no connection to the university — and indeed nothing has surfaced about it having made such claims — but it was, according to whistle-blowers, cleverly named to evoke familiarity. The firm did digital work for Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, and several recent reports and whistle-blowing accounts have raised questions about the ethics and possible illegality of its practices. What is already known, though, is that Cambridge Analytica obtained and used to its own ends tens of millions of private Facebook profiles and data (from an external source that provided it in violation of its own agreements). Most recently, a UK news channel undertook an undercover operation during which Cambridge Analytica’s (erstwhile) CEO Alexander Nix talks about how the firm had used tricks, honeytraps and other unsavoury tactics to influence political outcomes in several parts of the world.

All of this — though no doubt distressing for the internet and social media’s savvy users in, predominantly, Pakistan’s urban areas — is a far cry removed from the state of affairs here, where even a basic understanding of how the online world works appears still in its very nascent stages. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, was an effort to regulate the cybersphere that was no doubt required to some extent in this age of data theft, cyber-stalking and hate speech. But it has rightly been criticised on the same basis: unfamiliarity with the ramifications of the digital world. The Cambridge Analytica story is a snapshot of the Big Brother future the world faces. Pakistan needs to come up with the expertise to keep things clean.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2018